Saturday, December 25, 2010

Thor

- Thor in Asgard

When I was a kid the first thing my sis and I would do upon waking up Christmas morning was to retrieve our stockings and go back to bed to eat the oranges that my mom always put in them from our orange tree while we read the new Marvel comic books she also always included in the stockings ... The X-Men, Spiderman, The Fantastic Four, Thor, etc. Today I saw a movie trailer for an upcoming movie adaptation of Thor comics :)

I was really intrigued in college with medieval Scandinavian history and Norse mythology but it's pretty convoluted and I've forgotten most of it.. If I remember correctly, Odin is the ruler of Asgard, his wife is Frigg, and he is Thor's father (Thor's mother is Fjörgyn). Thor is married to Sif (and he has some girlfriends too), he has many half brothers, and his weapon of choice is his hammer, Mjöllnir. Loki, who can shape-shift, is considered something of a sinister character. Asgard, the realm of the gods, can only be reached by way of the Bifröst, a rainbow bridge between Asgard and Midgard (Earth), and it's guarded by Heimdall

In the comics, Thor displeases his father and is sent to Earth, to be somehow blended with an already existing physically disabled doctor, Donald Blake. While in his Blake persona he treats patients but when trouble rears its ugly head (often Loki) he strikes the ground with his cane and becomes Thor (his cane becomes his hammer) and he saves the day. His nurse friend, Jane Foster, is his love interest at the beginning of the comics, though he later ends up with Sif.

I'm not sure how close the movie will stick to either Norse mythology or the comic book, but it should be interesting. You can watch the trailer at Apple here.